Pine Cone Bunny.

With Easter fast approaching, we are deep into bunnies in our house. Teddy wants his peanut butter sandwich shaped like a bunny, Kitty hugs her beloved calico bunny to sleep every night and the bunnies who live in the garden (lol, their names are Mine and Yours) are being fed copious amounts of carrots and cabbage. In our house, bunnies rule at the moment.

So, it's hardly surprising that whenever I ask... OK, Kiddies, what shall we do today? Their reply is often 'MAKE A BUNNY!'

Here is our latest little guy...


He really is too sweet. He's made from things we collected on a recent walk around the neighborhood. A pine cone, a couple of pods and of course, a bit of wool fluff (from my wool basket... oh, if only we had sheep in our neighborhood :-)


I used my hot glue gun to stick the pods onto the pine cone and he immediately started to look like a cute little bunny.


All that was needed to complete this cutie was to stick the white bunny tail onto his bottom.


Here is our pine cone bunny. He really is too sweet... it looks like he's just asked a question and is waiting for an answer. I find myself telling him all sorts of things, he is such a good listener.


Happy Easter crafting :-)
Blessings and magic,
Donni

Let's make a Beeswax Suncatcher.

This weekend was supposed to be a spring cleaning weekend for Kitty. Her wardrobe has become cluttered with favorite clothes that have, alas, either become too small or too holey! Sadly, she is very averse to patches... apparently, they itch! So, it was with a heavy heart that we set about cleaning out her draws with the goal of leaving them neatly filled with her clothes that still fit and don't make her look like Oliver Twist.

It was after tidying the very first drawer that she discovered her flower press, well-hidden in her sweater drawer. She immediately remembered putting it there a many months ago. We had pressed Autumn leaves and she was having a very hard time waiting for them to dry. I suggested she put her press in a safe place that was out of sight. I suggested that if she couldn't see the press, perhaps she'd have an easier wait. As it turns out, her sweater drawer was the 'out-of-sight' place.

So, yesterday, with utter delight, she uncovered our beautifully pressed Autumn leaves.


"Oh, MOM!" she exclaimed happily... "Let's make something exquisite with them!"

Her excitement at discovering a long forgotten treasure was so palpable that I just couldn't bring myself to be the "NO, clean your room!" Ogre.

I put the beeswax on the bain-marie and we set out all we needed to make an autumn leaf sun catcher.

All we needed to make our suncatcher was our pressed leaves, melted beeswax and a tuperware lid that has a nice level base and enough of a lip.


When the beeswax has melted (here is a tutorial on how to melt wax safely), pour a thin layer into the tupperware lid. When the top layer has started to cool, let your child carefully (the wax under the cooled top layer will probably still be hot) arrange the leaves upon the beeswax.


Pour a second layer of melted beeswax over the leaves.



When it has cooled a little (after about 5 minutes) use a sharp object (we used a wooden skewer) to make a hole in the warm wax. This will be how you hang your suncatcher.


When the wax has cooled properly, carefully extract it from the plastic lid (it should pop right out). Hang it in the window with a piece of string or ribbon and enjoy the pure beauty.


It is soooooooo beautiful, especially on a rainy day just when the sun comes out again... it glows golden and little hands just can't keep themselves from touching it :-)


Needless to say, Kitty's room remains un-Spring cleaned :-)

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Make a Hummingbird Feeder.

We so love the hummingbirds. They are prolific in our area... visiting our garden often. They remind me of UFO's... they come 'whirrrrrrrrrring' in, hover, and then, faster than lightening, zip off into the air and away. They amuse me and make me smile.

Kitty want's them to stay. She gets frustrated with their fleeting visits. So, in an effort to tempt our hummingbird friends to stay a little longer than they do, we made humming bird feeders.

We needed:

* A pretty, vintage bottle (picked up at a garage sale)

* A Hummingbird stopper (from our local garden shop. You might also find these at pet stores or hardware stores)

* Thin wire

* Pliers

* My trusty old glue gun

This is what the hummingbird stopper looks like.

We used our pliers to cut off a small bit of wire. I used the fine on the pliers to file the ends a little so that they were no longer sharp. We twisted it loosely around the top of the bottle.

We cut a longer length of wire that would fit around the bottle. We molded it to the shape of the bottle and threaded it through the loose top loop of wire.

We cut it and tightened it. Then we cut and tightened the top loop around the top of the bottle to hold the other wire in place.

I used my glue gun to stick the wire in place at the base of the bottle. I used a spoon to stick the wire down... once the glue has cooled and stuck (takes only seconds) the spoon breaks away easily.

We filled our bottle with hummingbird nectar, one blue for Teddy and one pink for Kitty (you can make your own with 1/4 cups of sugar, 1 cup of water and just a little colorful food coloring).

We turned our hummingbird feeder upside down and attached a nice bright and colorful ribbon to it (to attract the hummingbirds) and waited.

We didn't have to wait long... with in the hour, there was a beautifully colorful hummingbird feasting from our feeder. Yay... what excitement.

Blessings and magic,

Donni

Make an Autumn Wreath.

Our door says... WELCOME AUTUMN!

One of the ways we notice the changing of the season in our home is to make and decorated a door wreath for each season. As we collect the nature bits for it, we talk about how our world is changing with the new season. We talk about what we loved about the outgoing season, what we will miss about it and what we look forward to when it returns. As we make our new wreath, we talk about what the new season means to us, what new things we see around us, what other new things we will expect to see. This is one of the ways my children and I notice and 'feel' the seasons.

Today, we made our Autumn wreath.

We started with

* straw wreath (from a craft store)

* Autumn looking fabric

* Scissors

* hot glue gun

* nature bits collected from the world around us

* red wood beads (from my necklace that broke)

Kitty cut the fabric into strips.

Each strip was about 2 inches wide and as long as you want (ours was about 18 inches long)

I put a glob of glue onto the wreath from my hot glue gun.

We stuck one end of a fabric strip to the wreath.

We wound the fabric tightly around the straw wreath. When a strip of fabric ended, I stuck another, different, one to the end of the last and started the tight winding again, sticking the last of the wrapping fabric down with my glue gun.

Then came the 'really' fun part. Kitty and Teddy selected which nature bits to go where. I administered a dab of hot glue in the exact spot they had designated and they carefully stuck their bit into place... acorns,

Moss and Goblin Balls,

Leaves and beads.

We hung our wreath on our door and sat back to admire it and welcome in the new season...

Welcome Autumn!

Blessings and magic,

Donni

Make Butterfly Lanterns

Our Butterfly Lantern hangs from our pergola outside, glowing in the sunlight and, also, glowing in the moonlight.

It is ever so pretty, in a completely summery way.

To make it, we needed...

* pretty, double-sided, scrapbooking paper.

* a paper lantern

* glue

* scissors

On a white piece of paper, I played around with the scissors to make a template for the butterfly wings. Then, I folded the pretty scrapbooking paper so that it would fit the wings I had drawn and put my template wings on the fold so that, once cut, would open up into butterfly wings.

I cut around my wing template to make pretty butterfly wings for the scrapbooking paper.

Teddy Bear painted glue in the spot each butterfly was to go and we stuck our pretty paper butterflies in place.

Even when the real butterflies are resting for the day, our butterfly lantern brings the wonder of summer onto our deck.

Blessings and magic,

Donni

Recycled Mag Hearts.

Oh, my dear friends... how I have missed you all. I'm so terribly sorry for my sudden and abrupt departure from this space. My dearest darling computer crashed last Monday and has spent the entire week in the computer ICU undergoing, what is comparable, to open-heart surgery. Poor darling, had to be completely restored. Alas, I just couldn't bring myself to use A Good Man's PC, so accustomed to my beloved Mac have I become. I did try once but it felt like I was trying to write in French, so I gave up completely and waited for my loyal companion to be well enough to return here with me. Welcome back, my dear friends.

While we were away, we made the most the most of unexpected free time. To show you all how much we love you, we made these darling heart mobiles using recycled magazines. I love my mags but they do pile up. Here is a sweet way to give new life to their pretty pages.

All you need are...

* old magazines

* scissors

* ribbon

* a stapler

Kitty helped me by cutting a pretty and colorful page into 6 strips, about 2 inches wide.

Then, she lined them up in three rows of two strips and cut each row 1 inch shorter than the next.

We then created two rows from the cut strips... each row with a long strip, a middle sized strip and a short strip.

We laid a yard of ribbon along the center of one row.

And set the other row of magazine strips on top of the ribbon... but with the shorter strip touching the ribbon, the middle sized strip next and the longest strip on the outside.

Kitty then stapled the ends together.

Then, with help of course, she looped the shortest strips (the ones closest to the ribbon now) over to make a heart shape with them.

I helped her staple the paper heart to the ribbon to hold it in place.

The same with the second strip of magazine paper... the second heart layer.

And the same with the third layer, making a beautiful hanging heart mobile.

Our hearts hang from the pergola outside and twist and whoop joyfully in the breeze... they really are lovely.

So, thank you to all of you who join me on this magical journey, your friendship and sharing is a blessing in my life.

Blessings, Love and Magic,

Donni